Under the title “The future of the London scene” the Jazz Café offers various live events from late May, including the rather impressive, multi-skilled Rosie Frater-Taylor (24th). They say: “With a clear sense of purpose, Rosie blurs the lines between jazz, folk, pop & soul. Think Joni Mitchell meets Pat Metheny, Lewis Taylor teams up with Emily King or a female version of John Mayer.” Her March lockdown session from Ronnie Scott’s suggests at the least a fine update on George Benson’s guitar and scat unisons.
The 21-year-old Frater-Taylor is the daughter of London-based drummer Steve Taylor and and London-based Scottish singer Josie Frater, who have worked with Nitin Sawhney, Omar, Mica Paris, Ian Shaw and Steve Taylor Big Band eXpLoSiOn, and since 2012 have run Ziggy’s World Jazz Club in north London.
Starting out as a drummer, Rosie Frater-Taylor soon took up guitar, focused on jazz, and studied with Tomorrow’s Warriors, NYJO and at the Royal Academy of Music. She credits Pete Churchill of the RAM for hipping her to triads and drop-two chords in preference to extended tertiary harmony.
Her home Cubase demos made at 16 eventually became her first album, On My Mind (2018). Her second album, Bloom, is due out in June 2021.
Since August 2020 she has been a Rotosound artist, producing videos for the company, whose Pure Nickel PN10 strings she favours for her Gibson Les Paul Studio guitar. She uses a Henriksen amp, which she praises for its warm tone.
